Vhanja wrote:

You can analyze a lot about a movie and how it was made. What the interesting point about it is, varies. For Mamma Mia, there is little reason to have a deep analysis about why the movie was made. It's quite a straight-forward movie that doesn't have that many layers to it.

 

Why it was made? Do you want to know the deeper meaning?

Last edited by gently69 (April 2, 2015 1:02 pm)

Every film is made to entertain in my opinion. HOW it is entertaining someone ... there is the personal taste again.

Solar, your great knowledge of films and film theory is highly appreciated 

Just one more thing: I think we tend to categorize things and people all the time. You go to work in the morning and see a man in a suit, you think 'banker' or 'manager'. You see a muscleman bying a movie ticket for "The Fast and the Furious", you think 'stupid' or 'blockhead'. And so forth. Like I said, I find it to be quite liberating to try and overcome this kind of thinking as often as possible - and I'm failing quite regularly. 
When it comes to movies I just don't see the advantage of any kind of categorizing. (Although I have to admit that French movies almost always tend to fall into my very own category called "Intellektuelle Kackscheiße"... )
 

Last edited by SolarSystem (April 2, 2015 1:18 pm)

SolarSystem wrote:

Just one more thing: I think we tend to categorize things and people all the time. You go to work in the morning and see a man in a suit, you think 'banker' or 'manager'. You see a muscleman bying a movie ticket for "The Fast and the Furious", you think 'stupid' or 'blockhead'. And so forth. Like I said, I find it to be quite liberating to try and overcome this kind of thinking as often as possible - and I'm failing quite regularly. 
When it comes to movies I just don't see the advantage of any kind of categorizing. (Although I have to admit that French movies almost always tend to fall into my very own category called "Intellektuelle Kackscheiße"... )
 

You are correct.   Puting things into catigories and giving them labels is not really a good thing, but it is human nature.  It's one of the ways we instinctively try to make sense of the world.

I haven't seen any of those, unfortunately, so can't answer that.

 

Oh, absolutely. The problem with these discussions is that it might come across as if popcorn movies are somthing to be frowned upon whereas "Good movies" (for the lack of a better term) are the only thing worth watching.

That is far from the truth. I could easily count a dousin popcorn movies that I love, that makes me cry and laugh. And to be honest, I watch more popcorn movies than I do "Good" movies, because the latter one requires much more effort (but it also much more rewarding on a more profound level).

So this thread is not meant to be a snotty "You should never watch a movie for entertainment, you pleeb", as that is what I do myself 90% of the time. 

But as others have mentioned, categorization is important for us humans. It's how we learn the world. And I myself was never even aware or cared about such a distinction until I'd seen a movie that I could truly label as being a "Good movie". (If anyone out there want to give me a better term to use, I would happily accept it!)

tonnaree wrote:

Just for the record, I can eat popcorn watching the news.

My admiration for you grows and grows.

I agree that categorization is an integral part of being human. At the moment I can observe my nearly one year old son doing that all day - thou his categories are more like "car", "dog" and "duck".

The reason why this discussion here is so difficult, IMO, is that we still haven't defined the categories properly. As long as that is the case, there will be misunderstandings.

What exists are so-called genres (like someone mentioned before), but that is not what we are talking about, right?

Good movies vs. entertainment movies... interesting concept for discussion and I think I get the idea that is being presented.

Some movies I just want to kick back and view it without having to be challenged by the ideas contained within.  They are just filler for rainy afternoons when you are too tired to think and just want to have some fun. 

They are the "take away" food of the nutritional world.  Just chowing down on some carbs and animal fat and washing it down with some ale. 

I don't tend to watch too many of those kind of movies because it isn't very satisfying as a steady diet.  And it does bad things to your health in the longrun.  But occasionally it is great.  Light entertainment.

I would classify movies like Back to the Future, Groundhog Day and Four Weddings and a Funeral as those kind of movies.  I am always willing to watch those "feel good" movies multiple times (and have). 

What you call "good movies" I would call "idea films".  They are just as entertaining to me (maybe moreso) because they are extremely engaging and are what I tend to gravitate to most of the time. 

They would be independent films (not churned out by big movies studios), arthouse films, and many foreign films.  But they don't have to be - there are a lot of "idea films" that are made by famous directors by larger studios and I don't automatically dismiss them for their origins because then I think I would be missing some excellent films that deserve respect and further examination.

I think, rather than the money or people behind the film being the defining factor, it is the content or ideas presented in the writing, directing and acting that determines the intrinsic value of the film to me.  "Idea films" stay with you long after you get out of your seat (and sometimes they make it really hard to get out of your seat - like TIG did to me). 

They hit you like a punch in the gut and take your breath away.  They usually say something significant about the human condition - they make you think about big ideas (outside of your own little day-to-day world).  They make you question the world around you or make you search your soul for answers.  They cause discussion immediately after or even years after. 

There is a passage from a Pauline Kael review of one of my favourite "idea films", "Casualties of War" (directed by Brian De Palma) that articulates the power of such films -

"Some movies - Grand Illusion and Shoeshine come to mind, and the two Godfathers and The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith and The Night of the Shooting Stars - can affect us in more direct emotional ways than simple entertainment movies.  They have more imagination, more poetry, more intensity and the usual fare; they have larger themes and a vision.  They acan leave us feeling simultaneously elated and wiped out.  Overwhelmed, we may experience a helpless anger if we hear people mock them or poke holes in them in order to dismiss them.  The new Casualties of War has this kind of purity.  If you meet people who are bored by movies you love such as The Earrings of Madame De... or The Unbearable Lightness of Being, chance are you can brush it off and think it is their loss.  But this new film is the kind that makes you feel protective.  When you leave the theatre, you'll probably find that you're not ready to talk about it.  You may also find it hard to talk lightly about anything."

That's the feeling I have about "idea films" (what I think you are referring to when you say "good movies").  If I find myself protective of a film I know it has profoundly affected me and that is the kind of movie I find both entertaining and worthwhile long after the lights go up. 

There are hundreds of films that I have watched that fall into that category.  Too numerous to list here.  They come from almost all genres and eras.  Some directors are ones that I gravitate to have a number of these kinds of films.  Some are made by big studios - many are not.  Some are "hits", either critically or commercially.  Others are definitely not.  They could be flops or critically panned but if I felt that "special way" about the movie, then that film will enter into my pantheon of "idea films" and they stand apart from the popcorn ones. 

It is very subjective of course.  Highly personalised.

And it grows each year. 

I love movies! 

-Val

 

I have seen neither Tokyo Story, nor any of the others in Vhanja's list of "Good Movies" - I'd probably call them "art films" or "film d'auteur" - or possibly even boring (I will check out Tokyo Story, though, to see for myself).

For me a good movie is one that achieves what it wants to do. Schindler's List is a great movie, in my mind, because it is both a completely serious monument to the Holocaust and watchable (entertaining somehow sounds wrong for the subject matter...) - actually it's amazing. I'm glad I've seen it. And seen again, and taped.
I love Three Kings - incredibly entertaining and a political message.
Whereas I could perfectly well live without LOTR. Yes, I admire the love and enthousiastic work that went into it - I watch the extras (on the SEE) much more often than the films (the extras are really inspiring to me) but a co-worker summarized LOTR as: "They walk, and they fight, and they walk some more - why should I watch that?" and I don't completely disagree (no need to defend the film - I know there's more than that! I've seen the films, read the books.)

So I guess it really just comes down to personal taste. Unless, of course, one wants to analyze a film for a university course

As for whether a film acquires a deeper meaning for a viewer, I'm pretty sure that depends as much - or more - on the viewer's mindset at the moment of watching than on the film itself. And then one has fond memories of the film which will influence future viewings (I still love Flashback and Field of Dreams).

Somebody mentioned their reaction to Inception - that film left me completely cold and I have no desire to watch it again. But I had a similar reaction to Matrix (the first one) - what if it was true? What is real, how can we tell? (But from a "Money in - entertainment out" point of view the Wachowski brothers' best movie is "Bound"!)

Btw, I also think that the Hollywood/elsewhere distinction needs to be dropped (and for me LOTR is not a Hollywood movie, even if New Line financed it!) One of the best "popcorn movies" I've watched in the last years was the French "A bout portant" (though there wasn't really time to eat anything - certainly not to get a refill. It's 89 minutes of non-stop action - without any other aim than to entertain the audience). Whereas the first Fast & Furious actually had a "sociological background" (which I wouldn't have gotten without the director's commentary, and it's not the best word either, but I can't think of a better description).

I try to avoid categorizing films prior to having seen them. Unfortunately, the more a film "should be a good one", the more often I'm disappointed (as for example by the Coen's True Grit. Only The Assassination of Jesse James.... was worse. And I like westerns, I love the new 3:10 to Yuma. No Country for Old Men is also supposed to be a good movie (not in Vhanja's sense - or maybe yes?) which didn't do anything for me, I've completely forgotten it.) Whereas if my expectations are low to begin with, I'm often enough agreeably surprised (e.g. by Music and Lyrics - not a genre I usually watch, but I actually liked it).

(I really, really love our Mediathèque - new films arrive much faster than on French tv and if I don't like the film I'm not stuck with the DVD occupying precious space on my shelves).